The present invention relates to a spacer assembly for a merchandise shelf, and more particularly to a merchandise unit for stacked row gravity feed consumer product display and self service access, in which the spacer assembly serves to maintain the product stack in raised condition relative to the usual access surface of the shelf and simultaneously to provide a finger insertion space between the product and access surface to facilitate manual removal of the product from the shelf.
Currently, many drug stores, supermarkets and similar consumer serving business establishments utilize so called down angled or slanted shelving for stacking hand size boxed and bottled consumer products, especially in their health and beauty aids sections, to exploit the benefits thereby offered of better visibility, increased facings or display items per available unit area, reduced product inventory and improved overall presentation. To this end, contemporary store shelving manufacturers have developed a line of angled shelving with deep front lips that fit onto their merchandising units such as standard three, four, five and six foot on center by multiple height gondolas, or the like type display and self service systems.
By using this type of slanted shelving, any number of packaged consumer products, whether they be boxed or bottled, can be positioned in a semi-horizontal format at or below customer eye level, presenting good product visibility in a neat and orderly fashion. A key benefit of this type of configuration is due to the angle of slant of such shelving in the merchandising unit. Specifically, as one product from the lower end of the stack on the shelf is removed, another product slides down, by gravity, thereby replacing it. This presents to the customer a front-faced, always full-appearing, display while lowering labor costs for the retailer and avoiding the need for large amounts of inventory in order to accomplish a full and well stocked look.
However, a fundamental problem with the existing merchandise units is that it is usually difficult for the self service consumer to remove the bottom product from the stack on the slanted shelf, because gravity forces it and the products above it downwardly and forwardly flush against the shelf lip forming the access surface, so as to leave no finger space for enabling the bottom product of the deadweight stack to be lifted out.
Thus, there is a real need for providing an improvement in the existing merchandising systems utilizing slanted shelving of the described type, to overcome this very practical problem.